Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The New Allante

Stupid National League-style baseball. You can't take the bat out of Nixon's hands in that situation. At least I got to see the play, unlike some others that were missed while Comcast Sports Net was showing close-ups of faces in the crowd. Terrible job.

Two awful losses tonight. Both 4-1, went to 4-3, and ended that way.

Now I'm watching Boston Sports Tonight, on Fox Sports New York on Manhattan's Time Warner cable. Yes, it's true. It's actually just called Sports Tonight. But the feed comes from FSN New England. There's no doubt which teams they're covering. This is one show you'll never hear me complain about. I don't care if the hosts are bad, the commercials are annoying, whatever. Just knowing I get to see it in New York City and that a New York station gave the big F You to Steinbrenner is enough for me. I just watched an interview with Coco and Kapler. Sweet.

Okay, now to the important stuff. Sick of "terrible job"? Looking for that next big thing? No need to ask you cousin from California, I've got it for you right here. It comes with a story, of course:

The year is, I don't know, 1998-ish. My friends and I are sitting around at my parents' house. Yeah, I was still living at home when I was 23, but so were all of them, and some still are. All right, that doesn't make it better. Anyway, at halftime of whatever bowl game we were watching, my friend Jim says, "Hey, Smitty, you got any Simpsons episodes on tape?" "Uh, yeah, I have a lot." But I wasn't too keen on watching an entire random Simpsons episode at halftime, especially since it's on so often in syndication anyway. So I kind of talked him out of the idea. In the meantime, as Americans usually do, we ended up just talking about The Simpsons. He was telling us of an underrated line he liked. It was from an episode in which someone on the show is watching Married With Children. On the Groehning-drawn version, Peggy says, "Al, let's have sex." The "studio audience" "woo"s it up, like they so often did on the actual show. Al responds, "Eh, no Peg," to the delight of the crowd. He then turns to his left and flushes a toilet sitting next to the couch, sending the audience over the edge. In other words, the Simpsons writers were mocking the bawdy- and toilet-humor of it's station's other big show.

We laughed mildly, since none of us remembered this scene, and, well, he probably described it about as badly as I just did.

Later that day, or maybe even later that halftime, we're switching around (Whoever it was, it wasn't Chan. I remember Jim once seeing Chan with the remote and saying, "Someone make that remote leave Chan's hands right now," dead serious-like.) and, of course, we come across a Simpsons episode. After a few seconds, Jim yells out, "I think this is the episode! This is 'no Peg'!"

The rest of us were suddenly riveted. Imagine having something hyped up and then seeing that thing appear before you within minutes!

It was the "Homer in space" episode. We got to see the line. Much laughter ensued. Jim laughed along, the proud poppa of a line he spawned. He knew we were hooked. Had that episode not aired that day, it may have been forgotten.

When do you use the line? Any time a "no" answer is called for. Duh. But it works especially well when no really means no.

Chan: You thinkin' about becoming a yankee fan?

Me: Eh, NO Peg.

I said this line for years. My friend Jim has been saying it for nearly ten. We would appreciate your help in making it go nationwide. My goal in life is for that line to come back to me. Even if I just overhear it somewhere, my life will be complete. Well, more complete. Er. Ish. Am I making sense?

I'm gonna try to tie together Bill Simmons, the Simpsons episode in question, and Terry Francona...Bill Simmons says that some athletes get to the Keith Hernandez phase where they do whatever the hell they want, because, "Hey! I'm Keith Fucking Hernandez!" Dave Roberts steals second two years ago, we win the Series and Francona all of sudden says, "I'm Tito Fucking Francona" and sends Willie to our doom. Well not doom, really, but anyhoo. And all the while Trot is saying, "Eh, NO Peg..."

Also, one funny anecdote from Tuesday night at Fenway South in Baltimore: right in front of my buddy, Gatman, and me are these three 10/11 year oldish girls, and one has what looks to be some kind of journal/diary type book. She's leafing through it and Gatman is looking over her shoulder reading and this is what that page's entry said: "Does my dad take too long in the bathroom?" Then under that it had "Yes" and "No" like in a seventh grade note. So her dad gets up and goes to the bathroom and when he comes back, Gatman yells, "You took too long!" And damn if the little girl didn't turn around, shoot Gat a nasty look, and then start laughing...how slow do you have to piss to get your daughter to put it in her journal? Oh, and I got Ortiz to point at me during warmups, which was pretty cool...

Hey Mattysox; are you MattyMatty on Yankfan vs. Soxfan? Just curious if so. On a complete other note, Mattysox & Jere; a Millar homerun to go ahead sucks how much less then a go-ahead Damon homerun? (Just curious fellas) -Bloodyank78

A, not MattyMatty on that site, Bloody; B, the Potato is right- Damon is like, 1-17 against us...so...kind of a moot point.

And just to correct myself, and not give Tito too hard a time, the Globe is saying that Harris had the hold sign and disobeyed it, with some cockamamie excuse that "I thought the hold sign was just for the first pitch." So, Tito, my apologies. I didn't realize Willie Harris had reached "I'm Willie Fucking Harris" status just yet...

matty--thanks for the positive response and immediate usage of ENP! And that "you took too long" story was hilarious. In fact, maybe that should be a catch phrase.

Pullout sofa Home Fry--you beat me to it. But, to address his hypothetical situation: The person I talked to after the game said "Well, good for Millar." Then the guy on Boston Sports Tonight said he was happy for the guy as well. And I am, too, looking back at it now that his homer can't be erased. At the time, I just had the feeling I'd have with any other go-ahead HR against us, but with the feeling of "You knew Millar had to hurt us eventually." I'm just glad we got that and the O's finally beating us out of the way on the same night.

I haven't read anything about the Harris/Tito thing yet, but whoever is at fault, you really need to make sure you're gonna make it if you decide to steal in tthat situation. FOr him to be thrown out on a one-hop throw was just horrible.

Mom, well, actually, it's probably written "Eh...NO, Peg." But I wanted to show that there's no pause between no and Peg. Much like how you're saying nope egg.

Then again, Jim has a way of making a phrase his own. So, at this point, I'm really imitating him, not the actual line. For years, Jim has said, when quoting Dr. Venkman from Ghostbusters, "What about......the Twinkie." But if you listen to the actual line, there's no pause there whatsoever.

Bottom line, Dog, just say the "Eh," wait a beat, then really nail the "no," and follow it up with a quick "Peg" and you're AU.

I'll argue that you can use the comma to differentiate the phrase "No, Peg" (meaning "My response to your statement/query/action is negative, Peg") from "No Peg" (meaning "There is no Peg here" OR "Peg is not here", perhaps somewhat slangily).

I'm the son of two English teachers myself, and most of the time I practice good sentence structure. But commas and parentheses are too much fun to play with and I occasionally break other rules like starting sentences with "But" or "And".

Jere, I don't remember reading this entry last year. It may have been from before Amy clued me into your blog. Anyway, it is a super-funny one and I wanted to say 'nice job' on the title. I didn't watch Married With Children much either, but I totally remember that one episode... "The Neeewwww Allante!" I think it is almost freaky that you and I know what eachother is talking about with that title!